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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (196907)	2/18/2007 3:23:17 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793738

Paragraph 1 - If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath. What is most remarkable about prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq is not that it got things wrong and thereby misled policymakers; it is that it played so small a role in one of the most important U.S. policy decisions in recent decades. In paragraph one, Pillar basically says that the White House must always obey the analysis of the intelligence community. I don't see anything in paragraph 1 that says the White House must obey anything; rather, paragraph 1 just expresses the author's amazement that the White House appears to have chosen a path which disregarded the then available intelligence.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (196907)	2/18/2007 10:21:11 AM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 793738

the crux of the problem There are several. You have pointed out a few, but for the sake of synthesis, I see them as follows, in no order of importance because they are all critical: 1. The tremendous lack of return on the huge amount of money invested. While you show cite many emples suggesting that ther CIA's intelligence product has been crappy since the end of the Cold War, the failure to see the problems with the Soviets before it ended suggests that the product was crappy before then. 2. It essentially thinks it is a state within a state, e.g., despite the overwhelming evidence that anyone who mattered knew Valerie Plame was once, a very long time ago, a covert agent, it set the wheels in motion to prosecute the people who "outed" her. Who knows where the CIA was aiming, but the heat was felt at very high levels. I think it was a shot at Cheney. This was infighting at its most vicious from an agency who advised the administration that the presence of WMD in Iraq was a "slam dunk." And sending Wilson, the husband of a known CIA WMD analyst, to check for yellow cake in Niger was the height of stupidity. The potential for conflicts of interest, charges of nepotism, partisanship, etc., are enormous. What were they thinking? Were they thinking? Who knows what other shenanigans it is responsible for. 3. "Policy prescriptive." Baaah, enough said. The CIA was never intended to be a policy making body. Period. Full stop. The CIA's funding needs to be cut, money shifted to organizations without such a built up culture of arrogance despite poor performance. It is dangerous in its present state, but this is the history of all intelligence agencies except for perhaps the British. They become dangerously close to becoming rogues. This is why a decentralized system is best, with competition taking place between various actors. As elections approach, it will be an interesting place to watch as it curries favor with Dems in the hope that they will keep the funding at the levels it is accustomed to.